


Advent XIII

by Tammany



Series: Assorted Advent Stories, Christmas 2014, All-sorts, some connected. [13]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Advent, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Gen, Through the Eyes of a Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 19:51:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2744960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short, but sweet. Christmas through the eyes of Baby Em.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Advent XIII

If she had been old enough to ask, and old enough to answer, little Em would have assured you that magic was real. Well—it was obvious, after all. In her little world things arrived unheralded, often by means unknown, and disappeared as mysteriously. Adults made argle-argle-argle at each other, and then ran around purposefully, accomplishing wonders. Indeed, adults were wonders—so strong, so fast, so certain and sure. Bounty flowed from them. Comfort arrived unending.

Of course magic was real. Em witnessed it daily, benefitted by everyday miracles. Magic was real, and adults were magicians.

There was Dada and Mama: she knew both faces so well. Blue eyes, wrinkles, sandy hair, smiles. She knew their strong hands and their funny games. She knew what they both looked like when they puffed their cheeks and squinched their eyes and made noises for her. She knew Mama’s sweet little voice singing lulabies. She knew Dada when he made his voice all silly and goofy and strange to make her laugh. She knew the smell of them—fresh and clean at the start of the day, or sweaty and tired and grubby at the end of the day, before bath time. She knew the smell of Mama’s perfume when she and Dada went out without her, leaving her with Uncle Shay and Mum Hudson.

She knew those two, also—knew them so well! Uncle Shay who was big and loud and small and quiet and who read to her with so many voices and who sometimes just stopped and looked and looked and looked at her, as though she was the magician, not him, and he was trying to work out every secret she had. His eyes burned, then, and his face was still, and he hovered over the cot and stared and stared. And Mum Hudson? She never stopped talking, did she? But all of it was sweet babble punctuated with biccies and songs and bounce-on-the-knee, “This is the way the lady rides, trit-trot, trit-trot, this is the way the gentleman rides, gallop-a, gallop-a, gallop-a, this is the way the farmer rides, hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy….” And when she got to “hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy, hobbledehoy,” oh! Em was tossed all over Mum Hudson’s knees, and they both laughed and laughed and laughed.

And now they were in the magic place—a big place all light and bright, with the fireplace that the adults kept sweeping her away from no matter how she tried to get near, and with green and lights and spangled things everywhere. There was a beautiful set of dolls, wood dolls, that she’d barely noticed at first, because it was all soft wood colors and no bright toy-colors, but once she saw it she wanted it with a want so big it split her in two and still she kept on wanting. Dolls—beautiful dolls all laid out carefully on the top of a table, with greens around and a shining banner of shimmery fabric flourished over the wall above them, and a little house that was open so you could look in, and there were sheep and camels like in the Noah’s Ark she had, and there was a big, fancy fairy thing with a horn that flew up above, caught in the shiny fabric as though it was a net. There were people-dolls kneeling all around the little house. But most important of all were the people in the house—the Dada and the Mama and the Baby. Uncle Shay held her over and pointed everything out, saying the words. “Sheep.” “Camel.” “These are the wise men, Em,” he said, then looked both ways and took the tallest and thinnest and slipped him into the house with the Dada and the Mama and said, “Shhhhh, don’t tell, now…” And then when Em waved and grabbed, he laughed, and said, “Yes, that’s the baby, but he’s not ‘Em,’” and when she disagreed violently, because who else could that possibly be but her, her, her? he chuckled and said, in a whisper, “You can be the Messiah if you want to, then. Far be it from me to set your sights any lower than Godhood…” And he kissed her cheek.

There was the pretty girl who teased Uncle Shay. There was the tall man who snipped and sniped at Uncle Shay while Uncle Shay snipped and sniped back. The first few times she cried, because she thought it was real fighting. Then she realized all of a sudden it wasn’t, and she stopped crying and laughed.

There was the silver-haired man who just smiled at her. And now there was another tall, thin man, his hair even whiter and much, much shaggier, who held her like he knew how it was done. And there was the busy, bossy woman who didn’t hold her, but who once—just once—traced a finger over Em’s lips and sighed, and turned away.

There was sweet food—striped sticks that tasted so fresh and bright. There were all kinds of biccies. There were meals at a table with more people than Em knew what to think of. There was music.

She loved it—loved it all so much. She stood, wobbling, and waved her arms in circles, shouting long, singing streams of sound, singing and crooning, trying to explain how big it was. She lifted a foot, determined to run to Mama and Dada and tell them. Instead she fell—bump—and landed on her little round bum. But she was still too full of the wonder of it all to care, and her arms kept on windmilling, and she kept on singing and singing and singing.

The tall man who bickered with Uncle Shay came over, and squatted on his heels, and looked in her eyes. She looked back, and told him in runs and trills and “ah-ah-ah” how exciting it all was.

He smiled at her, and said in a near-whisper, “Yes. You’re quite right—I love it too,” and he picked her up and turned her around, and nuzzled his long, beaky nose near her ear and said, “This is your first Christmas, Em….” And he turned, and turned, and they both sighed and crooned as the lights and the green and the beauty spun around them. And he held her tight, and he hummed in her ear, and only years later did she know that the song was “What Child is This?” All she knew—all she ever needed to know—was that he held her tenderly, and hummed in a deep, furry voice, and when Mama and Dada came to get her she didn’t quite want to go, no matter how much she loved them.

And no one, Including Em in years to come, could ever figure out why she was forever confusing John Bull and Father Christmas…but she did. In her heart Christmas wore a Union Jack, and had a receding hair line, and she loved it more than she could say.


End file.
